Google fined $22.5 million

Google has been fined $22.5 million for using Apple's perfect Safari browser to spy on fanboys. The US Federal Trade Commission fined Google for violating the privacy of people who used the super secure browser which turns aside all known germs, not like that awful Microsoft or Mozilla one.

The FTC said Google had agreed with the commission in October 2011 not to place tracking cookies on or deliver targeted ads to Safari users. However for several months in 2011 and 2012, Google placed a certain advertising tracking cookie on the computers of Safari users who visited sites within Google's DoubleClick advertising network. Google had previously promised users they would automatically be opted out of such tracking.

David Vladeck, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection was worred that the search outfit claimed it did not know it was tracking Apple fanboy's doings. A company like Google that is storing personal information from hundreds of millions of people has to do better, he said. Google agreed to the fine, it did not admit it had violated the earlier agreement.

Apple's Safari has privacy settings which make it impossible to stick tracking cookies on any visit. However Google managed to come up with a cookie that ignored that elite security and tracked the transaction anyway. Google said it used known Safari functionality to provide features that signed-in Google users had enabled. It insisted that the cookie did not track Apple' users vital personal information such as which Coldplay single the user was listening too, or read which girl the fanboy would really like to pay them any attention.